


Member of the Wedding

by Rubynye



Category: DC Comics
Genre: F/M, M/M, Nonmonogamy, One of My Favorites
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-14
Updated: 2010-01-13
Packaged: 2017-10-06 06:26:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/pseuds/Rubynye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What would you say if I asked you to be my Best Man?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Member of the Wedding

Title: Member of the Wedding   
Fandom: DC Comics  
Summary: "What would you say if I asked you to be my Best Man?"   
Pairings: Nightwing/Robin, Oracle/Nightwing (Dick/Tim, Babs/Dick)   
Rating: PG-15  
Warnings: Slash, het, complications.  
Based on/Spoilers for: _Nightwing_ through #117  
Infinite Thanks To: [](http://maelithil.livejournal.com/profile)[**maelithil**](http://maelithil.livejournal.com/) for audiencing, [](http://brown-betty.livejournal.com/profile)[**brown_betty**](http://brown-betty.livejournal.com/) for betareading, and people who know who they are for general spiffiness.  
Disclaimer: These characters and their settings and situations belong to DC Comics, not to me.

 

It's the reverse of No Man's Land, in some ways. Gotham is choked with refugees from Bludhaven; the shelters are full, rents have gone up, families are homeless in the streets. Tim finds himself slightly disturbed by how close to reassuring the familiarity of disaster is. He's also slightly disturbed by the familiarity of being slightly disturbed.

What isn't disturbing in its familiarity is the grimy glitter of Gotham at night, even from a relatively low rooftop in the Heights. Tim takes a moment to glance around at the tall buildings, brick and glass and steel, before looking down over the edge of the roof as a staffer for the shelter beneath him emerges, patting down her frazzled hair, her sigh cut off by a gasp as she spots the package he left.

He can't help smiling as she shrieks, "Thank you!" to the sky, before remembering herself. She whispers, "thank you," again, with a self-conscious little laugh, and runs inside for help.

"Merry early Christmas, Elf Wonder."

Tim turns, and almost thinks he's having an auditory hallucination. It _is_ possible he's having a visual one to match, so the need for confirmation gives him an excuse to reach out and grab Dick, and he doubts that a hallucination would be so coherent across all the senses.

"Hey, little brother," Dick says softly into Tim's hair. He feels real. A little thinner, but solid and warm and entirely real down to the fine grain of his suit, and he smells like himself.

Tim manages not to try to taste him. Instead he pries his arms from around Dick's ribcage and steps back. "Hey, Nightwing," he says, flattening his voice into something vaguely professional as he checks the alleyway. The shelter worker, back with reinforcements and a box cutter, is snipping the twine and passing the bundles of blankets and flats of canned food to her helpers. Satisfied that the package can be considered delivered, Tim turns his attention back to Dick beside him.

Dick has his lenses down, his eyes blue and open. He has raw patches on his cheekbones, probably chemical burns from the Society's attack on Bludhaven. And his smile is so calm and bright that Tim's having a hard time seeing any other details. "I'm glad to see you're ok," he says, slipping his hand around Tim's shoulder. "It's been rough lately."

That is a bit of an understatement. "Yeah." Tim hadn't known the location or status half his family-- and the fact that they're all the family he has left still aches-- if they were alive or dead. He had the Titans to help, and to be with, but... He still doesn't know where Cass is. She fell off the map in the Mediterranean.

But Dick's here beside him, arm around his shoulders. Tim feels guilty for not being able to worry more about Cass, guilty for not feeling guiltier about that. It's difficult to think through the suffocating relief of simply being able to look at Dick, of smiling as Dick regards him with some of the same eagerness, clear as always despite his mask. "Done here?"

Tim nods before he actually considers whether or not he has anything left to do. As it turns out, he _is_ done, but he's honestly not certain whether he would have finished the assignment rather than leave with Dick.

Then he's certain he wouldn't have, because Dick grins the same grin Tim's remembered pretty much all his life, the same grin he's dreamed of since before he hit puberty. "C'mon, then, come back with me. My bike's three blocks to the west. I have something to tell you."

It looks like good news, and that's something which has become pretty unfamiliar. Tim smiles as he nods, and Dick trails his hand across Tim's shoulders and down his arm as he steps away.

Tim jumps down from the roof; it's a quick rappel to the ground, almost too brief to feel. He looks back at Dick, because it's too soon to take his eyes off him again, and Dick is jumping without a line. He flies diagonally down, hits the opposite wall with both feet out, and springs off.

Tim shouldn't stand this motionless at street level for this long, exposed at the mouth of an alleyway by a shelter's back door. He should at least turn and glance behind him. But he stands and watches, as Dick does a backflip, curved into a perfect arch, kicks off the wall of the shelter into a forward flip, springs one-footed off the far wall, and spins in midair to land in front of Tim like he simply took a step.

Dick grins. "C'mon, little brother. Time's flying."

Halfway to the bike it occurs to Tim that Dick was showing off. That confuses him for another block before he realizes it must have been for him.

The ride back could be called uneventful, if Tim doesn't count wrapping his arms around Dick's waist, or concentrating on every shift and flex as he steers the bike through Gotham traffic. Dick rides as insanely as ever, lanesplitting and weaving and going twice the speed limit. Once Tim would have feared for his life, but recently he's seen many worse ways to die than this would be.

Dick's got a small apartment in a blandly upscale building. The walls are so easy to climb it's almost like walking. When Tim looks back for the sightlines, he doesn't spot many good perches that overlook the window he's climbing through, and he's reasonably certain there aren't any hidden ones. It's a good choice.

The place is half-furnished and entirely undecorated and Tim barely manages to shut the window before he spins. The living room couch is a futon big enough to sleep on, which is good, because Dick's standing in front of it and Tim's already got his arms out as he jumps.

Dick catches Tim and lets himself be tackled to the futon. They're still in their suits, but Dick wraps his arms around Tim anyway and just squeezes him, almost hard enough, almost long enough. Tim presses his face into Dick's neck and squeezes back.

Dick doesn't kiss him, though. And eventually he sits up, pulling Tim with him. "We should get out of our suits, and stuff. Don't you want a shower? Something to eat?"

Tim doesn't say anything as inane as "all I want is you." It's not actually true, even if it feels like it in this moment, in Dick's arms. He pushes his face against Dick's chest for one more breath before sitting back. "A shower would be good. Do you even have towels?"

Dick laughs, and ruffles Tim's hair, as if years and time and change and death haven't happened. "You should have some faith in Alfred, if you don't have any in me. I've got towels."

"And news." Tim ducks out from under Dick's hand, because he's supposed to. Dick reaches up to unsnap his cape for him, though, so maybe tonight is about what they want after all.

"Yeah." Dick's smile is wide, his eyes unfocused. He pulls off his gloves and starts on Tim's tunic; Tim taps in the code for him, and pulls off his own gauntlets, but otherwise lets Dick undress him. "Yeah, I have news." He pauses for a moment, then disarms and peels off his own uniform top, dropping their dangerous clothes in a careless heap on the floor. Tim takes off his belt and lays it aside carefully before Dick pushes his tunic off, and notes the burns across Dick's shoulder as Dick takes a deep breath. "Babs and I had a chance to talk."

Definitely good news. Tim smiles with relief, glad to be able to react entirely honestly.

"And..." Dick is looking at his memory of Barbara, somewhere behind his eyes. "And to make a long story short, I asked her to marry me."

Tim swallows. The answer is obvious from Dick's smile. Tim is... laughably far from being an expert on love lives, or even having anything approaching a normal romantic life himself (and that thought chokes him with the vastness of its understatement), but... Tim ought to be really happy for them, he should grin, but...

But Dick looks happy, purely happy, with just a hint of a question in his eyes as they focus on Tim. So he keeps smiling, even though his mouth is going dry. He might be able to imagine a little of what Barbara felt when she looked into Dick's eyes, after believing she might never see him again. Even oracles are subject to stronger forces than wisdom.

So Tim says, "congratulations!" and means it; he means it even more when Dick focuses that smile on him, and runs fingers through his hair a little too slowly to be a ruffle.

"Thank you," Dick says, seriously. "Thanks, Tim. I... I know it's sudden, but a lot's happened recently, and I wanted to be right with her before I left, since I didn't know if I was coming back."

Dick's hand is slipping down from Tim's hair, down the side of his face. This is probably a touch that doesn't belong to Tim anymore, if it ever did. He twists away from it, looking down as he stands up. "Yeah, a lot _has_ happened recently," he echoes inanely. "Yeah." Before he can say anything disastrous, he concentrates on toeing off his boots.

Dick's voice makes Tim wobble and nearly fall. "Tim?" Tim looks up, and Dick peels off his mask, then meets his gaze with wide worried eyes. "You _are_ OK with this, right? With my getting married? To Babs? Because--"

"Of _course_." Tim isn't lying. Mostly. "This is wonderful news. There's been way too little good news lately. Thank you for telling me."

Dick smiles again, reassured, and starts on his own boots as he talks. "Good. I'm glad. I didn't... I wanted to ask you something, actually. We haven't started planning the wedding yet, of course, but..." Thump, thump, the boots hit the floor. "What would you say if I asked you to be my Best Man?"

Tim blinks.

He blinks again.

He really should say something. Soon. He should have said something.

Paused with a sock in his hand, blinking till the vertigo recedes somewhat, Tim thinks about Dick's last wedding, and the people who knew Dick when Tim was creeping around Gotham alleyways watching Robin fight on distant rooftops. He smiles and mostly means it, and shakes his head as he looks down at his hands. "I think I'd say I was really flattered. And that I'd have to turn you down." Tim listens, but Dick is just breathing evenly, not rough with upset, not even startled. "You should ask Roy Harper, I think."

Tim glances up. Dick is smiling at him, the way he does when he watches Tim untangle a mystery or take on a thug three times his size. "Yeah, I'm thinking of asking him," Dick says, and being right in certain ways is always a particular kind of painful. "But I wanted to..." he waves his hand by his head, a quick sharp gesture. "I wanted to make sure you'd be ok with it, so of course you figured it out, faster than I did. I knew you would."

As long as Tim thinks of this as praise he can keep breathing around the lump of ice crushing his sternum. Unlike his sixteenth birthday present, it isn't intentional. When Dick touches his face again, fingers spreading out over his hairline and ear, his heart bangs harder and harder against the paradoxically expanding ice lump.

"I want you to know, though, I want you there. I want you at the wedding. So does Babs, I know she does." Dick's eyes are bottomless blue. "Roy's my best friend, and... especially now, I owe him. But you're my little brother, Tim. You'll always be my little brother."

Tim's pulse thuds in his chest, beating in his temple against Dick's fingers. He should duck. He saw this blow coming. Instead he sinks to his knees on the futon, and both Dick's hands cup his face as he leans forward. Dick's lips are as intensely warm as ever, his fingers slide into Tim's hair and tighten, and Tim leans into him and into the kiss for as long as he can. For as long as it takes before he remembers he shouldn't, and why, before he reminds himself that next time he sees Barbara he'd like to be able to face her.

He falls back, away from Dick, but Dick leans forward to him. "I shouldn't have--" Tim raises his hands between them.

And helplessly wraps them around Dick's wrists. "No, you shouldn't," Dick murmurs, looking at Tim's mouth. He slowly pushes his thumb across Tim's lips, calluses and pressure like a drag of rough silk, and Tim has to close his eyes, press his lips shut tightly so he won't part them around it.

Tim can hear Dick leaning towards him, feel the mattress dimpling as he slides forward on his knees. When Dick says, "We shouldn't," Tim can feel Dick's breath on his mouth, just before Dick kisses him again, opening his warm, warm mouth over Tim's. Just before Tim's lips part in response, as Dick pulls him forward, as he kisses back.

****

It would be easy to sink into an exhausted sleep, for both of them. Dick's predictably trying to conceal the real extent of his injuries, and Tim's had a busy several weeks, months, years. Tim is curled up beside Dick rather than on him as he normally would be, as he used to be, in order to keep from pressing on the burned shoulder and the diagonal slash across Dick's chest. It would be easy to pull on his underwear and tights again, claiming he was cold, and fall asleep beside Dick, then wake up and get dressed and laugh, and pretend nothing had happened.

Tim should lift his head from Dick's shoulder. He keeps telling himself he will. When Dick says his name it's a cue he shouldn't have needed; before it dissipates he pushes up and away, peeling his cheek and arm and side away from Dick's skin. "That was the last time," he says, looking at the far wall in the gray dawn light.

"T--" Dick stops, and sighs. "I didn't bring you back here to--" He stops again, and sighs again. "You always figure it out, faster than anyone else. Faster than I do."

Tim knows Dick is smiling at him. He can feel the pull of that smile. He curls up around his knees. Dick sighs one more time, and puts his hand on Tim's shoulder, but doesn't try to turn him. "You're getting married. To Barbara. This is--" Tim's chest hurts, so he breathes, and listens to Dick hold his breath. "This is good. You love each other. It wasn't... fun, seeing you two separated."

Dick makes a little sound of relief, and squeezes Tim's shoulder. He's breathing like he wants to say something, but fortunately, he doesn't.

They lie there for a bit longer. Tim describes a hot shower to himself in luxuriant, steamy detail, but he still doesn't move from under Dick's hand. The light has brightened from gray to blue by the time either of them finally sits up, and the one who does is Dick. "I should make you some breakfast."

Tim rolls. His choices are towards Dick or away, so he rolls off the futon, onto his feet. "You don't have to--"

"No, really." Tim makes the mistake of looking up, and Dick's smile is hopeful and entangling. "Go take a shower. I'm sure I've got some eggs or something. Afterwards you can sleep for a bit, OK?"

Tim should shake his head, should refuse, but... if Dick makes breakfast he'll probably end up eating some of it. Tim opens his mouth to agree in some way reassuring enough to end the conversation and make Dick let him go while he can still resist that smile, but what he says is "I'll be there," which startles both of them and doesn't serve the desired purpose at all.

Dick's eyebrows draw down, then lift as he gets it, and he just smiles wider. "I-- Thanks. I really want you to be there."

"This one will go better." Apparently, Tim's mouth has disconnected itself from his brain, or at least his control. He winces when he sees Dick wince, and barely manages not to wince again when Dick grins.

"It will, because you'll be there to help make sure it does." Dick lifts his hand, and Tim should move, should dodge, and just can't. But Dick puts it down to push off the futon and get up, leaving the blanket behind to wear nothing but shadows and pale morning light. Tim locks his knees to keep himself from diving across the futon. "Breakfast in ten, OK?"

"OK." That gives Tim three minutes to shower and seven to bury his face in a towel and breathe. Ten minutes before he has to face breakfast with Dick and a busy day in a city that needs its heroes. He takes them, and goes.


	2. Commentfic: Babs Has Her Say

When Dick opens the door Barbara has ample time to aim, and she knows how he dodges; the dictionary seemingly headed for his chest bounces neatly off his forehead. "Ow!" He sounds surprised, but by the time he stands up enough to see her face he's managed to figure it out. "Uh. Hi, Babs."

"You're buying Tim's tux," she informs him. She's pretty sure the Batarang she's tossing has nothing to do with his unhesitating nod, but it makes her feel better. "And a new bike."

Dick nods again, and rubs his forehead. "He likes Hondas, yeah."

"You're _mailing_ them to him." Now Dick looks shocked. She tosses the Batarang a little higher, once, twice, as he opens his mouth and shuts it again, finally wilting and nodding slowly. "And you know where to send the flowers."

"If you have the mailing addresses of the cemetaries..." She tilts her head, and his shoulders slump. "I got it."

"Good." Babs tosses the Batarang one more time and turns back to her console.

It really doesn't take very long before he asks in a good little cowed voice, "Can I come in?"

She glances over her shoulder at him and nods. Being human, she watches him walk over. At least he has the sense not to smile till she smiles at him first.


End file.
